War in Ukraine

If that is the case, why doesn't Russia simply take advantage of it and march to Kiev? Game over, right? If these 10k troops were needed on the defensive lines, and they are clearly not there, it should be that much easier to achieve a breakthrough. Or Russia could do something similar and attack where they are not expected and try to attack Ukraine's defenses from behind. Why is Russia wasting time?

This is a big deal because Putin will not want this to happen again. He will have to take action to prevent it from happening again. He may have to pull back troops from the front lines to guard the border. He may have to increase the defenses on the border. (He may decide to shoot the border guards until morale improves.) Either way, it is something that Putin will have to either spend manpower or money on, and he doesn't have a whole lot of either to spend right now. War was much easier for him when Ukraine stayed put and fought where Russia expected them to fight. A brilliant move by Ukraine, so far.

 

Russia may have the most porous border in the world, second only to the southern border of the U.S.

 

Agree, just make em sweat. May give Puketin pause about a tactical nuke too.
Throw a few Himars into the reactor as a counter measure, when the wind is blowing NE.

 

Former Us Marine who uses Western sources almost entirely …

 

Point of order, Mr. Chairman. I never used the word “little.” Two brigades is not a little operation, and I’m hearing it could be as large as four brigades, including support units.

 

Nice excuse. When is the last time that the U.S. Border Patrol let a couple of enemy army brigades in with tanks and artillery across the southern border during a time of war (you know, when your military units at the border are supposed to be . . . alert)?

 

Retired US colonel weighs in on Ukraine’s suicidal incursion …

 

Complete waste of resources and an act of desperation.

 

My thought is if the natural gas pipeline gets disrupted that is a good think for natural gas exporters.

 

if Ukraine wanted to disrupt the nat gas, they could just close the pipes going thru Ukraine. Crazy to think that Ukraine is allowing Russian gas to go through Ukraine and Europe is still sending $$ to Russia for nat gas

How Russia exports gas to Europe via Ukraine? | Reuters

About half of Russia's natural gas exports to Europe still pass through Ukraine. The other half of Russia's European gas pipeline exports go via Turkstream under the Black Sea.

 

I wonder how big the force commitment will ultimately be? I'm hearing Ukraine has opened 1 or 2 other assaults in the vicinity.

I'm also hearing Russia is responding. Interesting that Ukraine has, at least initially, created an offensive with significant armored movement.

Also, Ukraine is packing the pierced Russian lines to turn those against the Russians.

The podcasters I follow suggest Ukraine has limited supply and support infrastructure to expand the offensive much further. Hopefully they are incorrect.

Saw a couple of pictures of Putin and he looked rather frazzled.

Uftaipan - It would be terrific if you could give us some feedback about the view point of the US Military in terms of how this conflict is influencing US conventional warfare and tactics going forward, at least against the possibility of a NATO / Ski conventional conflict.

One thing seems obvious to me, Drones of all types / air and water will be playing major roles in the future.

 

Ukraine's op sec on this attack is really strong. No one really knows what's going on, even now. Very interesting times. Russia is having to move a lot of men and heavy equipment to respond to this. Will be interesting to see what long term effect this has, if at all.

 

Russia's humiliation continues. The rouble has dropped 2.5% vs. the dollar as a result of this incursion by Ukraine.

Russia struggles to repel Ukraine's deep Kursk incursion

 

Ukraine blows up Russian rig in Black Sea killing 40 soldiers & wiping out HQ

 

https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/08/europe/ukraine-russia-incursion-analysis-intl-cmd/index.html

There may be a larger strategy at play here. Sudzha, now at least partially under Ukrainian control, is next to a Russian gas terminal, right on the border, which is key to supplying gas from Russia, via Ukraine, to Europe. That arrangement is said to close end in January, and this may be a bid to curtail a lucrative source of funding for Moscow that has angered Kyiv since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in 2022. (As of Thursday, there were no public indications of gas supplies being affecte

 

Did you read report that Ukraine was controlling the skies over the assault

 

If Russia is going to try and mobilize convoys of equipment to Kursk, wouldn't it make a ripe target and easy pickings for Ukraine? It would seem that maybe the attack allows Ukraine to define when and where they engage and that the battlefield would favor Ukraine

 

No. Which link is that?

 

I would have assumed the Russian Air Force would have opened up on Ukrainian positions in the Kursk region. That response has been a little underwhelming, to be sure.

 

The Ukrainians may have brought a Patriot launcher or two with them, so the Russians may be scared of it/them. Plus they have a record of inaccurate bombing so far in the war. The last thing that Russia needs is to obliterate their own towns. It's bad enough that they bomb their own towns and cities on a regular basis trying to hit targets in Ukraine.